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To those who are fellow totseans, this is how I view what went down. To non-totseans, Totse.com was a website that allowed freedom of speech. It was full of hacking, drugs, bomb making, scamming, phishing, anti-gov't ideologies, and some of the best political talk in internet history. It was created by a Man who went by the name "Jeff Hunter"(not his real name, which was never revealed). The final post on totse said that Jeff was "burnt out", and wanted to move onto something new, but many people did not buy this explanation for the shutdown[This post was originally a response to a person who claimed the FBI had nothing to do with the shutting down of Totse, for context]

Jeff Hunter made a huge server upgrade, after years of having the same server, just a few weeks before he shut the website down. Why would he have made this huge investment, after not doing it for years, if he knew he was going to shut Totse down in a few weeks(when it would take months, or years to re-coop his investment)? Did he get "burnt out" overnight, and burnt out enough to take severe financial losses? He also made it clear to Totse members that the FBI was pressuring him, on numerous occasions.

In response, to the pressure, Jeff made it a perma ban to say "Totse Army", "TA", "T&A", or ANYTHING that could be construed to be talking about the Totse army(which was likely the reason the FBI was so interested in TOTSE). This was OBVIOUSLY an attempt to keep totse from getting shut down by the FBI, for being an actual terrorist organization(like I said, the Australian Gov't had already officially declared TOTSE.COM a terrorist organization). If totse was a terrorist org, then Jeff was its leader(so he was potentially looking at life in prison).

On numerous occasions, totse, grouped up, in real life, and on the internet, to cause mayhem. They put neon signs on Bridges in the USA, causing a nationwide bomb scare. They repetitively called people, harassing them(Bill Keller's Liveprayer is example). They would go around in groups, spraypainting totse graffiti all over(not to mention hacking government traffic signs, and displaying pro totse messages). Combine this with the fact that there was recipes for all kinds of explosives, and how to properly lead an uprising against the US gov't(or how to hack into its telecomm systems), you can see why the FBI, and Australian Gov't were seriously threatened by Totse.

In addition, There is no way to explain why the website was not simply passed on, to somebody like ZOK, who made Zoklet(totse clone), or the creators of things like totse2.com. Many people in the community offered to take it over. Jeff could have easily made money, AND respected the Totse community.

Instead, we're to believe that for no apparent reason, and with no warning, he pulled the plug, without selling the domain name, or allowing another user to take over. I think one likely scenario is that he was bribed to shut it down, which would explain why he didn't allow anybody to take over, or sell the domain(because that would have been part of the deal with the FBI). It would also explain why he was willing to shut down so shortly after making the investment in the server.

Or maybe they just arrested him, charged him, and seized the servers, then shut it down. They could have easily gotten him to write that final message for a reduced sentence.

Jeff Never revealed his identity, so we'll never know what happened to him. Some even say it was a honeypot from the start( I don't though). Some say he got hired by intelligence services because he was one of the most knowledgeable people about the internet, and internet crime.

Regardless, even if he was not killed, arrested, or bribed, the FBI was still probably the primary cause for the end of Totse. If he really did get "burnt out"(another word for scared), it was because the FBI was all over him, and everybody knew it.

Man i fuckin loved totse, good times and good people. Yea we talked about bombs and overthrowing the government and shit but I never felt like there were truly bad people on there. Bad ideas, night ops, highlighters in people's asses, lol so many memories of that site. Also the guy with all the spiders was cool. It was a real shame when it shut down and nothing has really replaced it for me.

It was called SHARP's spider megathread, this guy had a whole room in his house with all different kinds of tarantulas and he would catalog them and just generally knew a fuck ton about spiders. He knew all the latin names. He would post pictures of them all and pictures of his spider room with just the whole wall filled with terrariums.

I always loved the article on how to make a nook because it made me laugh so hard. Picturing someone waving a bucket around over their head, attempting to simulate a centrifuge to separate the U-238 from the U-235 just sounded ridiculous.

I loved &totse, I spent as much time on it as I do on Reddit. Living in the arse end of no where in England it gave me a cultural education. Pointing me to Vonnegut and Thompson and got me to jump on my bike to go to the library to see what PKD books they had (Man in the High Castle).

It was a mystery as to why it shut down, especially after the servers were updated and the big hooha about them.

There's so much to be said about totse, from the amazing text files to the mayhem of spurious generalities. I stopped visiting as much when there was that karma/points thing. I got frustrated that I couldn't seem to make an impact.

"Jeff Hunter"(not his real name, which was never revealed..) Dfg or whatever your name is (since you feel you were the first to come up with "totsean" as plural .. Jeff Hunter is in fact his real name. He had a PO Box in walnut creek california, he went to "2400 bps" meet-ups (often held at Cafe Italiano) his wife at the time was Dr Alice Hunter (since remarried) his best friend was JC Stanton, he ran a ethernet company up the street from the Walnut Creek BART station, and ran a computer repair shop on Main street in Walnut creek, Lived in Lafeyette california, born in San Jose California, Worked for companies like Seagate and CEO for Manpower Temp Agency and finally worked for EA games and Bridgewater Associates Hedgefund. he can be seen on youtube. He left Bridgewater around the time that John Comey left Bridgewater. and Wikipedia just changed out the page making sure that Contra Costa Times connection was removed from 1993, right at the time Contra Costa was closed down. Also Harper Reed who claims he and his friend blew up some hay stack, was hired to run Obama's 2012 campaign.; but that last part can't be 100 percent confirmed.. could be a joke. but if he really did, then it's really documented. So you lived in Pakistan? are you the guy who wrote one of the first computer virus and ran "Down the Well" or whatever that dialup board was called? people like Julian Assange I believe were apart of the late 80s and early 90s schemes. stuff like black boxes and blue boxes and brown boxes and all kinds of boxes. whistle into it. Cute story though. We had fun talking with this "Lawyer" today. such a kid.. he couldn't keep his nervousness controlled.. seemed to lack the ability

On numerous occasions, totse, grouped up, in real life, and on the internet, to cause mayhem. They put neon signs on Bridges in the USA, causing a nationwide bomb scare. They repetitively called people, harassing them(Bill Keller's Liveprayer is example). They would go around in groups, spraypainting totse graffiti all over(not to mention hacking government traffic signs, and displaying pro totse messages). Combine this with the fact that there was recipes for all kinds of explosives, and how to properly lead an uprising against the US gov't(or how to hack into its telecomm systems), you can see why the FBI, and Australian Gov't were seriously threatened by Totse.

So they're basically a bunch of assholes doing stuff that can actually endanger people? Jesus Christ, folks - wanting limited sensible government by/of/for the people and less corruption doesn't mean taking all the stop signs down arming yourself to the teeth and being paranoid. These are the last idiots I would want in charge.

I'm not sure what everyone's definition of "statist" is, and I'm no more willfully indoctrinated than you are willfully belligerent against the windmills you see as adversaries (see also: Second option bias).

I'm just a guy who thinks living in a society is better than living in the "libertarian workers paradise".

You know, I'm not sure that a site with "hacking, drugs, bomb making, scamming, phishing, anti-gov't ideologies" is a good thing. And I am really not surprised it got taken down. I will be downvoted for saying that I think this is a good thing.

There is no such thing as bad information or knowledge. There are bad ways to use information and knowledge, but in the same way as guns are not dangerous by themselves, neither is any knowledge. Simply understanding how to build or how a bomb works is not dangerous. Building one and using it to hurt people is.

Well given that plans to make bombs only enables people to make bombs and detonate them, and serves for not much else. It is much better to stop that information getting into the wrong hands. It can only do bad so really banning it makes perfect sense.

That's silly. That's like saying that knowing that mixing ammonia and bleach is incredibly dangerous. It can only do bad, so we shouldn't know it? Or like knowing if I put dry ice and water in a bottle and put a lid on it, it will explode. Saying that any given piece of knowledge should be censored or have access to it limited is against all academic theory and also very much the basis of how to restrict freedom of speech.

If you can start taking specific pieces of information and deem them dangerous, how long until criticizing authority is considered dangerous and therefore not allowed? Yeah, I get it, I don't want my local maniacs building bombs or making cyanide, but I'd rather take the chance than live in fear of knowledge, you know?

Yes but in this case it can ONLY do bad. There is no upside. Also you seem to be employing the "slippery slope" arguement, which is also silly. We could carry your logic and say that there shouldn't be laws outright, as each one is a basis to restrict our freedom. How long until we can no longer do X, Y and Z? I don't think the information should be banned outright, just that this forum was spreading it in a bad way. From OP's post I gather they created a few bomb scares, really disbanding this community by banning the website is pretty good. Ideally the resources to make this should be banned.

It is the suppression of free thought and information in a society that leads to people wanting to change things in the only way they have left, with violence.

You think that teaching people leads to bad things happening, when ignorance is the true villain here. Ignorance of how the world actually works leads people to thinking they know what is best for everyone individually when it would be detrimental to mankind as a whole.

Thinking that knowing how to make a bomb makes someone a potential bomber is dangerous and ignorant. Most people who blow things up with malicious intent are doing it without much planning or forethought and will go for the simplest possible method. Re-use of un-exploded military ordinance (ISIS etc) or commercial blasting equipment (IRA etc), liquid gas bottles with an incendiary (Al Qaeda in UK), black/smokeless powder from shotgun shells (Graham Backhouse). These methods take next to no thought and can be put together by anyone with intent to harm people, no instructions needed.

Conversely there are chemistry books available at public libraries that detail how to make Nitroglycerin, Trinitrotoluene, even C-4 / RDX or any Nitroamine based explosive, and they sit there gathering dust. Anyone intelligent enough to want to know how and be able to make them is smart enough to know blowing people up is not an answer to anything.